An urgent need to reassess climate change and child labour in agriculture
Authors: Muhammad Hidayat Greenfield
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2022)

The 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour will be held in Durban, South Africa, on May 15–20, 2022, at which the immense task of getting back on track to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 8.7, which includes the elimination of all forms of child labour by 2025, will be faced. As the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF observed, in the absence of social protection and resilient employment policies, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a substantial increase in child labour, undermining the progress made since the 2010s.1ILO/UNICEFChild Labour: global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward.https://www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_797515/lang--en/index.htmDate: June 10, 2021Date accessed: March 5, 2022Google Scholar The challenge of eliminating child labour is greatest in agriculture, which accounts for 70% of all child labour globally; approximately 112 million children. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)'s Global Solutions Forum–Acting Together to End Child Labour in Agriculture, held in November, 2021, highlighted the need for multidimensional and multisectoral approaches, and underscored the call for urgent action to maintain our commitments under SDG 8.7. A 2021 review of studies on climate change and children's health found that focus on climate change and child health in the literature is poor, and that many studies only include children as a subpopulation of analysis. As a result, we face substantial knowledge gaps. The review concludes that "Rejuvenating innovative research efforts across disciplines is crucial to fill these gaps, where situating climate change and child health within the UN Sustainable Development Goals will be key."2Helldén D Andersson C Nilsson M Ebi KL Friberg P Alfvén T Climate change and child health: a scoping review and an expanded conceptual framework.Lancet Planet Health. 2021; 5: e164-e175Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (72) Google Scholar There are several aspects of the link between climate change and child labour in agriculture that need further attention. One of these is the relationship between rising land surface temperatures, heat stress, and hazardous work. For adults employed on farms and plantations in low and medium Human Development Index (HDI) countries, poor access to adequate, safe drinking water contributes to a high incidence of heat strain and heat exhaustion, along with long-term illness. The IUF submission to the HLPE consultation on water and food security in 2014 observed that the epidemic of chronic kidney disease affecting sugar workers in Central America is related to heat stress and dehydration.3IUFSubmission to the High-Level Panel of Experts for Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) consultation on water and food security. International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, Geneva2014Google Scholar In this context, there is an increased need to understand the effect of heat stress and dehydration on the health of children engaged in these same agricultural activities. Children are more susceptible to heat exhaustion and dehydration than adults, producing proportionally more heat when performing the same type of work. A working paper on managing heat in agricultural work published by the FAO in 2018 concludes that children could be at a higher risk of heat-related illnesses at temperatures above 36°C.4Staal Wästerlund D Managing heat in agricultural work: increasing worker safety and productivity by controlling heat exposure.https://www.fao.org/3/i9179en/I9179EN.pdfDate: 2018Date accessed: February 9, 2022Google Scholar More recently there have been studies of heat stress and dehydration among children in agriculture. An important example of this is the 2020 study of heat-related illness among Latinx child farmworkers in North Carolina, USA, which draws on interviews with the children working on farms.5Arnold TJ Arcury TA Sandberg JC et al.Heat-related illness among Latinx child farmworkers in North Carolina: a mixed-methods study.New Solut. 2020; 30: 111-126Crossref PubMed Scopus (17) Google Scholar It is common for agricultural workers to arrive at work dehydrated due to their living conditions. When children are living in housing that is hot due to rising temperatures, they already suffer from dehydration and heat strain before they even start working in fields. The cumulative effect of this heat stress also requires further study. Due to extreme heat and exposure to the sun, as well as other extreme weather events, the times at which agricultural workers and marginal farmers can work in plantations and fields is getting shorter. The 2021 Lancet Countdown Report6Romanello M McGushin A Di Napoli C et al.The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future.Lancet. 2021; 398: 1619-1662Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (449) Google Scholar warned that 79% of all potential work hours lost to extreme heat in low HDI countries occurred in the agricultural sector in 2020. This finding raises concerns that the effect of heat exposure on working hours could also affect food production, resulting in devastating economic consequences to these already vulnerable workers.6Romanello M McGushin A Di Napoli C et al.The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future.Lancet. 2021; 398: 1619-1662Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (449) Google Scholar Compared with working hours in 2012, agricultural workers and marginal farmers are now starting work earlier in the morning and finishing work later in the evening to avoid the hottest part of the day. Such changes in working time to reduce the risk of heat exhaustion and heat strain are often described as climate adaptation strategies. However, in several low and medium HDI countries workers might have already reached the limit of their adaptive capacity.7de Lima CZ Buzan JR Moore FC Baldos ULC Huber M Hertel TW Heat stress on agricultural workers exacerbates crop impacts of climate change.Environ Res Lett. 2021; 16044020Crossref Scopus (36) Google Scholar Working late in the evening in cool temperatures is safe in terms of reduced risk of heat stress, but other risks increase. There is greater exposure to mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue in the evening than there is in the day. If children are working at dawn and dusk to avoid heat stress, then they face an increased risk of these vector-borne diseases. Given that childhood malaria poses substantial long-term health risks, this health impact of climate change deserves greater attention.8Bennett CM McMichael AJ Non-heat related impacts of climate change on working populations.Glob Health Action. 2010; 33402Crossref PubMed Google Scholar The constraints on the adaptive capacity of agricultural workers are not only physical. In the absence of social protection and a guaranteed living wage, workers who depend on piece-rate wages must worker harder per hour than if they had more time in which they could safely work in the available safe working hours. Contrary to guidance and medical advice that workers experiencing heat exhaustion or heat strain slow their pace of work, as productivity declines workers must increase the pace and intensity of work to fulfil targets or quotas. A decreased pace of work or rest breaks means missed targets and lost income. As we have argued elsewhere, the piece-rate wage system is one of the key drivers of child labour in agriculture.9IUF Asia/PacificEliminating child labour in agriculture needs guaranteed living wages, fair crop prices and freedom from debt.https://iufap.org/2021/05/04/eliminating-child-labour-in-agriculture-needs-guaranteed-living-wages-fair-crop-prices-and-freedom-from-debt/Date: May 4, 2021Date accessed: April 28, 2022Google Scholar Even the safe agricultural tasks that children aged 12–14 years might undertake outside of school time, and for short periods, could fall within the definition of hazardous work in the ILO's 1999 Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation10International Labour OrganisationR190 - Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation, 1999 (No. 190).https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312528Date: 1999Date accessed: March 5, 2022Google Scholar if the risk of heat stress and dehydration increases due to climate change. Urgent action is needed to incorporate rising temperatures and extreme heat events into the policies and legal frameworks that regulate hazardous work. Some of the current Hazard Work Lists developed under ILO Recommendation Number 190 focus exclusively on the work process and hazards intrinsic to that process. However, Article 2 of the 1999 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (Number 182), states that all people younger than 18 years are prohibited from work that is hazardous by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out. It is the circumstances in which the work is carried out that must be re-examined in the context of climate change. It could be argued that rising temperatures and the risk of exposure to extreme heat redefine many tasks currently considered light, safe work as hazardous to the health and wellbeing of children. It is incumbent on us to better understand the way in which rising temperatures and extreme heat events have created new hazards for children's health, to develop more effective means to reduce the risk of heat stress among children engaged in agricultural activities, and to redefine what is light, safe work in this climate crisis. It is well understood that both child labour and climate change are complex, multi-layered issues. However, it is equally well understood that complexity should not justify inaction. Taking place less than 6 months after the COP26 UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour in Durban offers an opportunity to better understand these linkages and to take urgent action. I declare no competing interests.